The Smell of Amortentia
by Bekahning
Summary: Ron needs homework help, as usual. R/Hr, pre-relationship fluff.


This is my first published Harry Potter fanfiction, also on AO3. Please enjoy, and please tell me why if you don't! It's a bit of pre-ship fluff. In my head, it takes place around fifth year.

* * *

Hermione Granger put down her wand and flexed her aching hand. After three hours of writing and editing, her History of Magic essay was at last finished. Harry and Ron could tease her all they wanted, but it seemed a crime to leave out anything about the Battle of Cardiff; there were too many fascinating details for her to exclude much. The Gryffindor yawned and began rolling up the parchment.

Across the small table, Ron looked up. "You're done?" he asked, his voice startled as always.

"Yes." Hermione frowned severely. "You can't copy it."

"I'm doing the Potions essay—"

"The one due tomorrow?" Hermione wasn't surprised, but she couldn't pass up the opportunity to disapprove. "Honestly, Ron, it's nearly midnight already. How far have you gotten?"

Ron's ears were turning red. "I know, and I just need to finish—can't you just help me end the thing and look it over?"

Hermione rubbed her eyes. "Oh, I suppose." She had never really planned to refuse, anyway. It wasn't as if she hadn't done this a hundred times before over the last several years. The girl forced herself out of the chair, back aching from leaning over the parchment for so long, and walked behind Ron's chair. She leaned over his shoulder to get a better look at the essay. "You know he docks points if your writing is too big?" she asked.

"Yeah, but if I wrote more he'd find more mistakes, so it evens out," Ron said, shrugging. They had argued over this too many times for Hermione to press any further. "Can you help me with the ending bit? I'm rubbish at those."

Hermione was well aware of this. "Alright," she said, trying not to sound too patronizing and suspecting she failed, "What is the essay mostly about?"

"The effects of combining different potions," Ron said, then added rather grumpily, "You don't have to baby me, Hermione, I'm not stupid."

Hermione rested her hand on his shoulder, trying to keep steady despite her exhaustion. "Sorry," she muttered. "Well, just write the effects again. You've already got a few paragraphs with examples above it, so do a little summary at the end. Or put a few sentences about how varied they are. You can start off with 'In conclusion...'"

Ron shook his head. "I can't start out with that, it sounds too much like you." He scratched out a few short sentences at the bottom of the parchment. Hermione rested her chin on top of his head while he did so and noted that he needed a haircut; his hair, smelling like soap and sweat, tickled her nose. "Is that alright?" he asked after a few minutes.

The parchment was covered in crossings-out and ink blots, but Hermione could make out the ending paragraph anyway: _Many different possible effects can result from combining potions, mostly bad ones. In general, potions with the same base are easier to combine safely and potions with different bases are more likely to blow up or release poisonous gas. Still, the only real way to tell what happens is to try combining them yourself._

"That's fine," Hermione said. "I'll just fix a few things." She grabbed her wand and leaned closer to the parchment, then began to correct mistakes, changing punctuation and fixing spellings. It didn't take her very long to finish; she had a lot of practise. "There, done. Just copy it onto a fresh sheet of parchment and it should be fine." She smiled at him.

"Solid T, I expect," Ron said, grinning back sleepily. "Thanks, 'Mione. You're a lifesaver."

"You're welcome." Her stomach fluttered as she realized how close he was; that bit of nervousness wasn't new, but it surprised her every time. Hermione wondered briefly what would happen if she kissed him.

She stepped away from him, breaking the moment before she could do anything stupid. Ron's ears were bright red again, she realised. Ron cleared his throat. "Well, er, night then."

Hermione took a deep breath. "Goodnight."

Much later, when Slughorn asked about what amortentia smelled like, Hermione almost did something stupid again. "It smells like new parchment and freshly mown grass and mint toothpaste and—" Ron Weasley's hair.

Well, it wasn't like she hadn't known already. Hermione blushed, her mouth snapped shut, and she considered kicking Harry under the table for the knowing look he was giving her.


End file.
